Derek Mahon Flashcards
Ismay’s vivd recollection of the tragic night:
“As I sat shivering on the dark water I turned to ice to hear my costly life go thundering down”
appeals to our senses (can see the objects descending into the water):
“prams, pianos, sideboards, winches, boilers bursting and shredded ragtime”
Ismay watched his: with the ship
“life go thundering down”
(After the Titanic) we can feel the:
“shivering cold”
image of drowning:
“I sank as far as any/hero”
Ismay’s life is now very bleak, he is forced to:
“hide” in a “lonely house”
Ismay is haunted by the:
“dim/lost faces”
sense Ismay’s sense of remorse when his:
“poor soul/screams out in the starlight”
Mahon challenges our perception of Ismay as a complete villain:
“include” him in our “lamentations”
As Oates walks away:
“the tent recedes beneath its crust of rime”
snow (Antartica)
“howling snow”
Oates (vertigo)
“frostbite was replaced by vertigo”
huge physical and mental effort of Oates:
“goading his ghosts in to the howling snow”
Mahon considers Oates huge self-sacrifice:
“need we consider it some sort of crime? this numb self-sacrifice of the weakest?no”
(As it Should Be) speaker depersonalising his victim:
“a mad bastard”
